OMELIE / Omelie EN

17 gen 2021

17/01/2021 – 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time  - B 

17/01/2021 – 2^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time  - B 

Reading 1 1SAM 3,3b-10.19 Psalm 39/40 Reading 2 1COR 6,13c-15.17-20 Gospel  JN 1,35-42

Today we are meditating an important event in Jesus' life. John the Baptist, after meeting Him, follows Him with his eyes and he points Him to his disciples, by himself pushed to wait for the Messiah, God’s anointed sent to reunite His children scattered. Two of them, one of whom is Andrew, understand and obey, beginning to follow the Lord. The latter becomes aware of the two who are following Him, and takes it on Himself to ask what they want. It is interesting to see that He does not ask them if they are looking for someone, but if they desire something. Usually we, when we pray, ask God for many things, certainly good things, but always “things”. This tells us we are looking at ourselves, at the needs we think we have, at the plans we made and we want to achieve in our life. We are not paying attention to the beauty and goodness of His character. Jesus wants to check if John’s two disciples are looking for something, if then they think He is someone who satisfies temporary expectations, that He has come to serve the desires of men’s selfishness in order to realise their plans.

Luckily instead the two of them answer that they are not looking for something. They have understood that the Messiah comes to share a new life, to begin a new age, and so first of all they want to learn. So they ask, «Rabbi, where are you staying?», making understood that they would like to stay with Him in order to learn how to live, to be at His service as disciples who serve Him and offer Him their labour. This is the very behaviour to keep in front of Jesus and the Father. This is how we treat the Lord as the true lord of our life, and as a servant that needs to make us happy regarding everything we think is important. He is the one to know what is good and useful for us, and above all to know how our life can be at the service of the Kingdom of God. When Andrew, in fact, will introduce to Him his brother Simon, then Jesus will give him a new name, highlighting in this way the fact that meeting Him gives new meaning, a new role and new value to life. Whoever meet Jesus will relive in fact the wonderful story of Samuel, the boy who, called at night by God, put himself at His service in order to cooperate with His plans for His people. In fact, he says: “Here I am. You called me”, as he was saying: I have no plans of mine, I have no other goal but concretise yours, because you alone give peace, salvation and joy.

Saint Paul is highlighting one of those aspects in our life which changes radically when we meet Jesus. Since the risen Lord is giving us His Spirit, we do not think anymore that our body is made to follow the instincts and satisfy the impulses of sexual pleasures. The Christian, who wants to concretise life as the Father has thought, is definitely different from the other men in this aspect too of existence. In fact the Christian desires purity for their body and want to respect other people’s bodies. Therefore they do not reduce to jokes the most sacred mysteries of life, they do not play with their greatest skills, the most delicate and mysterious of their body and their feelings, such as the ability of giving life and showing love.

The Christian, even when is preparing himself to get married, does not try out with himself or with another person. God does not want us to trial the mystery of life. You can try out things that you can throw away, not our life and others', precious and never coming back. The Christian, young or adult the same, is exercising then patient love, faithful love, showing who they want to love that they truly love them, in fact they know how to wait and suffer for him or her. He, or she, wants to love the person, and not the sexual pleasure that they can get from them.

«Glorify God in your body» the apostle says to conclude his pledge. And again: «Your bodies are members of Christ». Today we can see the consequences that our meeting with Jesus Christ has produced in our life in this aspect too, and thank Him.